International English this year

This year in international English we have learned a lot. Some of the topics we have looked into are global challenges and the media world. This has been very interesting and instructive. Among other things, we have watched movies and read books. The kite runner is one example. In this book we meet themes like relationships, war, betrayal and forgiveness. This is a very emotional book, and we have gotten a lot of impressions and thoughts around these themes. All of the films that we have seen fit the requirements of the curriculum goals, especially global challenges.Through the whole year, each of us wrote one personal blog in English. Here, we wrote our own thoughts around what we had done in class, and other things about international English. We also had conversations with students in other countries via skype. This was very fun and interesting!

- Tuva, Susanna og Rikke

Varieties of English

As most of people know the English language is not only being spoken in the Anglo-American core area, but also in several other places and countries in the world. English is the most widely spoken language on our planet, but this includes those who have English as their first, second and third language. English is today the most international language in the world, and we can see numerous reasons for that. I think one of the main reasons for this is that England had a great colonization period which started in the late 15^th century, and they established many colonies all over the world.

For example the English colonized in many sugar-rich Caribbean islands. Today this has resulted in that people here speak English, but of course there is a great deal of variation in the way it is spoken. We can take Jamaica as an example. Here it has developed in two types of English; Jamaican English and Jamaican Creole. These two kinds of English is used differently in dissimilar situations. The Creole language is used as a “day-to-day” language for the Jamaican population. We can see examples for this in different kinds of music. Reggae is a mentionable example here. The Jamaican English is the language which is used in the newspapers and the language spoken in school etc.

One of the old colonies of the British Empire is India, and today English is one of the official languages in the country with at least 90 million speakers. There are a lot of varieties and dialects of the English in India, it is a huge country with about a billion inhabitants. But despite some of the varieties there are still some features we can call typical Indian English. For example their use of “ing- form” and their rhythm while speaking the language is very unlike the rhythm used in US and UK English. This can make Indian English very difficult to understand for foreigners.

There are also some countries in Africa which have English as their official language, Kenya, South Africa and Nigeria are examples. But if we take South Africa as an example, we can see that this country has eleven different official languages! A reason for this is the country’s diversity in cultures and languages. I thought before reading about it, that everyone in South Africa spoke English, but after doing some research I found out that in 2001 only 8.2 percent of the population in South Africa speak English.

We don’t know the correct number of how many people in the world who speak English, but we know that there are plenty of them. I think the number of people speaking English will increase even more the next years, because I think this language I a great part of our future. The world’s future, working together to achieve our common goals.

- Rikke

"There is a way to be good again"

Today we saw the movie "Gran Torino". It's directed by Clint Eastwood, and was recognized by American Film Institute as one of the Ten Best Films of 2008. Eastwood himself is not only the director of the movie but also the main character Walt Kowalski.

Walt Kowalski lives in a so called ”ghetto neighborhood”, formerly populated by the white working class families, his neighborhood is now filled up mostly with poor Asian families. He is a retired Ford factory worker and also a Korean War veteran. We can easily see that he struggles with a lot pain, from losing his wife, maybe guilt from killing in the war? He is a man a lot of people find scary and cold, even his two sons don’t appear to like him much.

Walt’s Hmong neighbor Thao one day tries to steal his Gran Torino after being pressured by his cousin and his gang. Walt catches the Hmong boy, and gets really mad at him. To make up for Thao’s behavior, the Hmong family next door forces their son Thao to be at Walt’s service for the next two weeks. This becomes the start of an unexpected friendship, which changes both of their lives. Walt Kowalski, the rude, bitter and recently widowed man and the Hmong Asian boy Thao, who didn’t fit in anywhere, because he didn’t wanted to be a gangster like rest of the boys in his village.

We can see different conflicts in this movie. An example is the conflict between the two gangs in the village, the Asian and the white, another one is the conflict between Thao and his cousin and his friends. But maybe the main conflict in the movie is the one Walt Kowalski has with himself and his thoughts and point-of-views that changes dramatically throughout the movie.

I think this is an exceptionally movie, I would love to recommend to everyone. It’s very intense and dramatically, but also very loving and emotional.

- Rikke

TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

About a month ago we were presented to an assignment in English class to read a book. Our teacher, Ann, had found three different books we could choose from, and “To kill a mockingbird” is the one I chose to read. The author’s name is Harper Lee and it was published in 1960. To kill a mockingbird is based on Lee’s own experiences growing up in Alabama in the town of Monroeville. She has with a loose knot based some of the characters on people from her neighborhood and family from her childhood. One of the issues we can see in the book is racism, which Harper Lee experienced a lot of herself. “To kill a mockingbird” have had a lot of positive feedback and is by many called a classic. It has also won the Pulitzer Prize which is considered as a very prestigious prize to win.

We see the perspective in the book through a ten year old little girl called Scout. She lives with her older brother Jem and their widowed father. Scout and her brother one summer become friends with a boy called Dill during his visit at his aunt. The three of them are very interested in their neighbor Boo Radley, which is a man very few in Maycomb (the town they live in) talk about him, and people barely never see him. Radley seems like a man the children are very terrified by, but also very fascinated by.

I’ve actually never heard about the book before it was presented to me in the class, and therefore I haven’t been really interested in it. Probably I’ve been very slow getting started on the book, but when I first have got the time to read it I’ve become very fascinated. I’m looking forward continue reading it!

- Rikke

Megacities

Megacities is a term we use for a metropolitan area with a population of 10 million or more. Today we have 21 megacities in the entire world, but if we look into the worlds history we see that it hasn't always been like this. In 2006, we saw for the first time in history that there were more people living in the cities than in rural areas.

If we look back about 200 years there were only 2% of the population who lived in the cities. After 150 years this percentage rose with 28 %, which is a lot compared to the previous years before 1980. This has probably much to do with the Industrial Revolution which began in the 1700s. At this time the world developed in many ways. New inventions made it a lot harder to get a job in the rural areas, and at the same time the factory industry occurred, which made it possible for people to work there. Hoping for a better future, a great part of the population moved into the cities. With the new infrastructure it also made it easier for people to move around.

In 2000 the percentage ascended with another 17 %, and in only 50 years this is a rapid increase. Its estimated that it'll be another 5% living in the cities in 2015, and when we reach 2030 the percentage will be at 60%. This comes with a lot of global challenges. With people moving to cities, there will always be a lot of the people ending up in slum areas. Have we got enough recourses to all of the people who are going to live in this world in 20 years?

The next statistics I'm going to take a look at is the one about the population in regions of the world. The first thing we see which is eye-catching, is that the three first continents has a descending population, these continents are North America, South America and Europe. Following we have the two poorest continents, and both of them has a increasing population. Especially Asia which already has the largest population comparing to the other continents, will have problems with the population growth.

According to an article published by City Mayors' website, the world's urban population will grow from 2.86 billion in 2000 to 4.98 billion in 2030. what this article also says is that the high-income countries only will consist of 28 million out of the 4.98. This is a very small part of the increase, and the continents that has a rose in the population will have problems, especially since a lot of people already are suffering from poverty etc.

Megacities: 2006 - 2011

2006:

1. Tokyo (Japan) 33.4 million
2. New York (USA) 24.1 million
3. Mexico City (Mexico) 21.7 million
4. Seoul (South Korea) 20.2 million
5. Sao Paulo (Brazil) 19.2 million
6. Los Angeles (USA) 18.3 million
7. Jakarta (Indonesia) 18.2 million
8. Osaka-Kyoto-Kobe (Japan) 17.7 million
9. Delhi (India) 17.4 million
10. Mumbai (India) 17.4 million

2011:

1. Tokyo (Japan) 34.2 million
2. Guangzhou (China) 24.900 million
3. Seoul (South Korea) 24.5 million
4. Delhi (India) 23.9 million
5. Mumbai (India) 23.3 million
6. Mexico City (Mexico) 22.8 million
7. New York City (USA) 22.2 million
8. Sao Paulo (Brazil) 20.8 million
9. Manila (Philippines) 20.1 million
10. Shanghai (China) 18.8 million

we can see that it has been a great change for many cities. A lot of cities has been changed with new ones only after 5 years, so we can see that there is a great development some places.

Rikke

December

December is the only month of the winter I like. I usually hate it when it’s snow outside and minus fifteen degrees, but in this month I can handle it. December is a month I’d think I’d enjoy the whole time, but the truth is that in fact the only time of the month I really love it is the few days before Christmas Eve and until New Years Eve. Most of the time before my weeks is spent on working 4-5 days a week, a lot of homework and of course my midterm exams. I get really tired of all of this, and it’s really hard to make time for everything. But despite all of this, I only have good memories from December; it’s a month I’m looking forward to every year. The atmosphere is goo and very cozy, with Christmas decorations and lights put up everywhere. My favorite thing to do, except eating dinner and open gifts Christmas Eve, is actually going around in Oslo and buys Christmas presents to my family and friends. First of all I love walking around in Oslo in December, you see a lot of different people, some super stressed and others just happy walking around looking for gifts. Someone is ice skating too in the middle of Oslo. Second of all I just love the way it makes me feel shopping for gifts for others. I love spending money at my friends and family, and buy them something they’ll be glad for. Basically December is a month to make others happy, and not only think about yourself. For example buy = Oslo from someone on the street, will make them happy and maybe help them be able to buy them something nice for themselves.
Christmas and December is one of my favorite time of the year, it’s a wonderful month. And I’m not looking forward to January and the cold months after..

Rikke

English in the Japanese world

I worked with the texts on the pages 40, 46 and 253, and the way i worked them was reading each one two-three times, and meanwhile taking notes. I worked mostly with Martha, but also with Anna and Tuva. The texts are about Japanese Manga and Anime, English in the South Asia and Japanese English. Out of the text I've learned about how Manga and Anime, have affected all the cartoons and such as in the Western world. For example Digimon and Pokemon are cartoons which I've seen on TV here in Norway, so I think it's exciting to know that it has reached to Norway so far up north as well.

Another thing i thought about while reading the text "The triumph of Japanese English", is how fascinating it is that some Japanese is better in English than some of the native speakers! It seems like a lot of them are studying really hard to learn to communicate with others, so that's great.

My opinion of this assignment is that it was a good use of time. The class is called "International English" so it's proper to use our time to study how the English language is in Japan since it's a great and well-known country, and I'm sure that if I'll work in Japan some time for a reason, I'll be glad i had this lesson.